Less than half of Alberta companies offer telecommuting

CALGARY - Less than half of companies in Alberta offer telecommuting to its employees, according to a BMO Commercial Banking Survey released Tuesday.

The survey, of the Canadian workforce, found that 49 per cent of Alberta employees said their company offers telecommuting to its staff compared with 56 per cent of Canadian employees.

However, the percentage in Alberta has increased from a year ago when 34 per cent said that flexible work option was available to them.

The survey defined telecommuting as “a work arrangement where employees work from home or other locations, rather than coming into the office.”

When asked if telecommuting has a positive impact on employee morale, 74 per cent of Alberta workers said yes compared with 77 per cent of Canadian workers.

The survey also found that 66 per cent of Albertans (70 per cent Canadian) and 63 per cent of Albertans (69 per cent) said telecommuting has a positive impact on productivity and on the quality of work, respectively.

Dr. Laura Hambley, industrial/organizational psychologist with The Leadership Store in Calgary, said it’s surprising and disappointing to hear that Alberta is behind the rest of the country on offering telecommuting as an option to employees.

“Whenever I hear these stats I wonder how telecommuting is measured. Many companies continue to use it ad hoc, which cannot be accurately measured. I question whether the data is capturing the true uptake in Alberta and the rest of the country,” she said.

“Our research team from the University of Calgary, as well as our consulting through The Leadership Store, sees many organizations launching WORKshift or remote work programs, so I would have thought we would be at least national average level. We believe that now is the perfect storm for telecommuting to rapidly grow, due to generational makeup of the workplace, weather and disaster contingency planning . . . and continued cost cutting measures such as real-estate reductions.”

She said the biggest barrier continues to be leadership mindset: “How do I know they are working if I cannot see them?” “It will impact our corporate culture.”

“These arguments have been proven not to hold up, and companies that launch these programs tend to wish they had done so sooner,” added Hambley.

“Despite this data, we believe telecommuting will continue to grow as the benefits far outweigh the costs, at least in many situations. Our research points out that not every person is the ideal fit to work full-time from home, but with various combinations of telecommuting and going into the office, it can work for many.”

Robyn Bews, executive director of WORKshift Canada which began as an initiative of Calgary Economic Development a few years ago, said the BMO survey is good news.

“Canadian companies are really starting to get it and at WORKshift we’ve been expecting this for some time. Clearly there is an appetite for employers that are offering workplace flexibility, which is why it made sense for WORKshift to launch nationally in 2013 with the help of our founders - Citrix, KPMG and Shaw - and why we are moving forward with creating the standards and ceritification process to help organizations navigate the often muddy waters of workplace transformation,” she said.

“We’re really seeing a shift from the traditional telecommuting definition of working from home or remote sites. Workplace flexibility is more about working where and when an employee is most effective and efficient, and certification is going to be a game-changer in the realm of workplace flexibility, shining the light on those that are doing it well, and calling out those that maybe aren’t as flexible as they claim to be.”

The BMO survey said 44 per cent of Canadians said in 2013 that they work at a company that offers telecommuting.

mtoneguzzi@calgaryherald.com

Twitter.com/MTone123

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